


enjoy the silence

by miehczyslaw



Category: Happy Tree Friends
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Background Character Death, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Rough Sex, Self-Harm, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:07:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22382326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miehczyslaw/pseuds/miehczyslaw
Summary: “Looks like it’s the hero’s turn to be rescued huh?” Flippy points out wryly.Splendid is too tired to reply with another scathing comment. So he shuts his eyes, and lets Flippy carry him on his back.
Relationships: Flippy/Splendid (Happy Tree Friends)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 52





	enjoy the silence

He doesn’t want to do it, he thinks.

No, he swears for everything that is honorable that he didn’t want to do it, nor was it intentional either.

It just... _happens_. Like an hurricane that isn’t overwhelmed with any restraint.

He goes to the little girl’s call since she twisted her ankle while playing around the garden of her house and is asking for help and her parents are absent. She groans, ‘Mommy, mommy’ for indefinite minutes until Splendid reaches her side, looking at her with kind eyes.

And so far everything’s normal, without news.

Splendid cradles her in his arms and promises her that he will take her to the hospital so a doctor can heal her, and then he’ll call her parents. He promises her. And _she believes him_ , watches him with hope and a sweet smile—

Then everything becomes blurry.

It’s not until a very loud scream takes over the block that Splendid snaps out of it, returning to himself.

(because before that scream there was only silence and time had frozen itself in an eternal ticking where he was not here, not really. And the silence had helped to dull the girl’s sudden panic and her hands that fluttered like a wounded bird while she was being strangled by a body that resembled Splendid’s. Except it couldn’t be Splendid. No way.)

Splendid doesn’t _want_ to kill her.

But he does it anyway.

And now— now while he looks in all directions and blinks confused, while he heards the cries of a devastated mother and an angry father in the distance, still with a very sharp image of the little girl who now lies inert at his feet, her neck red and crooked at an impossible and grotesque angle, a single voice echoes in his head. Soon it’s joined by others.

(cynical and full of disdain, they sound _like a song_.)

The earth shakes under him.

X

“It was an accident,” he insists to himself, later.

_Was it really?_

“I was going to save her. That’s my duty. The good guys save others. Superheroes save others.”

 _Sure they do_.

This is how the world has always been, after all.

Tree Town may be a somewhat enigmatic town where some people resurrect after a couple of days trapped in a coffin and where accidents occur more frequently than in other places, but this. This is certain to him. Villains murder and hurt people, heroes are responsible for saving their lives.

So why has he choked _an innocent_ to death?

“It. Was. An. Accident,” he repeats, clenching his lips with each word, just like his knuckles around the bathroom sink.

 _And yet not even you believes it_.

Splendid huffs, already predicting a migraine that will make his night impossible.

(something is not right.)

He recognizes it.

(something... something _is wrong_ , suddenly.)

There, in front of the mirror— with a bunch of pills scattered on the floor at his feet— Splendid contains a sob.

It was a mistake, that’s for sure, but he’s not allowed to repeat it under any circumstance.

“Just a child... damn.”

His cheeks are soaked with tears and. And—

There is no one besides him in his apartment, _he knows_ , but suddenly Splendid notices the presence of someone else. Or rather, someone else _has finally allowed him_ to notice it.

He fails to recognize himself in his reflection, no matter how hard he tries, too.

_Who the hell are you?_

(A joke. Just a fucking joke.)

X

Flippy is _the last person_ he wants to find under these circumstances.

Wandering in the alleys of Tree Town with the moonlight as his only company Splendid occasionally crashes into abandoned boxes and trash cans, and laughs. He doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore, honestly. His life seems to fall apart, like broken glass.

Nothing makes sense.

He had another accident. This time with a close friend, Giggles.

It was common for her to end up with a scrape or two if he helped her but nothing serious. And she trusted him. So it was okay. At least until today.

Just when Splendid began to relax— when he managed to convince himself that that incident was an unlucky one time thing—

Of course it couldn’t be. Of course.

He knew that he had to dodge the electrical system, he was going at the right speed to avoid it without difficulties even. But he squeezed his eyes at the last minute, took a deep breath, and when he opened them again he found a half-rosted corpse in his arms, smoke trails dancing around him.

 _I’m doing it on purpose_ , he thinks now.

This— hurting others.

Or maybe not him, not exactly, but he has no doubt that someone is playing with his actions when he lows his guard down.

(but who?  
and for what purpose?  
and _why him_?)

Splendid doesn’t have the answer for any of that.

So he wanders for a little longer until he collapses to the ground when he stumbles on his sneakers, and hears his heartbeat hammer.

It’s really cruel.

That’s when Flippy appears, out of absolute nothingness.

(he looks like a guardian angel, Splendid thinks, not without amusement)

(and isn’t that a bit funny? His archimemesis having the duty of taking care of him—)

Flippy grabs his arms preventing Splendid from digging more his nails into his skin and opening rivers of blood, like a crime scene whose only witness is the moon, and Flippy too, apparently. He hadn’t notice doing it until now, uh.

“Looks like it’s the hero’s turn to be rescued huh?” Flippy points out wryly.

Splendid is too tired to reply with another scathing comment. So he shuts his eyes, and lets Flippy carry him on his back.

X

“There are a couple of towels in the top drawer, and clean clothes. You can use them once you take a shower.” Splendid stands up and looks at the cubism pictures on the wall and the yellow mat in the hall.

“Why?”

“ _You stink_ , isn’t that obvious?” Flippy retorts with a grimace.

A dull pain reaches his wrists, but Splendid deliberately ignores it. Flippy arches an eyebrow.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks again, suspiciously.

_Why did you help me?_

This time Flippy walks towards him, stoping a few centimeters before Splendid, almost face to face. Flippy looks up at him and Splendid looks down.

(and there are only two of them but it looks like a crowd).

Splendid holds his temple, his head hurts. There’s blood licking his arms.

 _Kill_.

(Kill...?)

 _Slash_.

(Slash!)

 _Cut_.

(Cut!)

 _Destroy_.

(...Destroy?)

“No particular reason,” Flippy replies at last. And Splendid doesn’t believe him.

But he’s beggining to understand, at least a little, what Flippy may have to endure hour after hour, day after day. That sudden need to fight against the world and not because of it. To have everybody as an enemy, including himself.

Even if their circumstances are different— even if he can’t compare Flippy’s trauma and mental illness to... to whatever that’s happening to him.

So he doesn’t say anything, ignores Flippy’s sullen expression and goes straight to the shower, closing the bathroom door behind him.

Later, much later, when Splendid is almost asleep, he maybe hears Flippy mutter, “Welcome to the human decay. Took you enough, stupid hero.”

 _You are officially part of the town_.

Just maybe.

X

It becomes a habit, thereafter, worn with its use and _how easy_ it is to fall into it.

Splendid considers the option of resisting it, fighting against it, the third time he snatches a life without wanting to. The seventh time it happens he’s not able to bear it and ends up vomiting on the sidewalk. The eleventh time it happens Splendid doesn’t react at all and just leaves flying. He stops counting after that.

He’s afraid to talk to his friends, he’s afraid to return to his own home.

So he doesn’t. He goes to Flippy’s apartament instead.

The thing is.

Flippy doesn’t ask questions.

(Flippy may be rude and sly and unstable, extremely unstable, but he opens his door with disinterest whenever Splendid needs to wash the blood— his and theirs— and gives him privacy while doing so and Splendid needs that right now, more than anything. Some kind of— ally, _of refuge_.)

So he keeps going to Flippy’s place and Flippy keeps allowing him to.

Fortunately Fliqpy has been very calm those days and there’s no risk of Splendid waking up with his lungs tied to the bed. Not like it matters since Splendid’s _the dangerous one_ now.

Splendid drops himself on the sheets. They’re cold, Flippy has washed them at least five times since Tuesday.

The remains of meat, torn clothes stained in red, organs like Halloween candy, everything goes straight to the pipe. Everything but the memory.

The knowledge that people that he should take care of are being cut into pieces with lawnmowers or crossed in half with an iron or deformed when falling down a cliff from which he throws them.

(It’s all _his fault_.)

 _Murderer, that’s what you are_ , says the wall.

“Shut up,” Splendid hisses. Flippy, seated in a chair across the room reading ‘The Art of War’, looks at him, irritated but confused.

“What?”

 _He suspects nothing, he’s an easy prey_ , adds the bedroom door.

 _Come on! Just one tiny move is enough. You can butcher him with your bare hands_ , the curtains promises.

“Enough, enough. Please.”

“Hero.”

Flippy approaches him and snatches the sheet with which he covers himself, observing him as if he were in front of an interesting specimen in a laboratory. Splendid hides his face against the pillow.

“Hero, ey.”

“I want to kill you. I should kill you,” he babbles, broken. He does not speak to Flippy, however. “I hate you _,_ I hate you! You’re not supposed to be like this. What the hell is wrong with you. Die. Die. Die.”

Flippy crouches beside him.

“ _Splendid_ ,” he says, quietly. “Stop.”

Splendid refuses to listen to him. He refuses to listen to the voices too.

But he keeps quiet anyway, and scratches his wrists, enough to break the flesh.

He misses the silence.

X

“Doctor, there are persons— voices— that resonate in my mind. I think they’re _evil_. I think they like to torture me.”

“That’s understandable. Tell me the reasons why you came to that conclusion, Splendid.”

Lumpy’s fingers are secured to the pen with which he makes his session notes.

“They, well, they provoke me. With... stuff.”

“Oh? What kind of stuff?”

“Uhm. They say, for example, that they love red. That every corner of Tree Town should be painted with red. And then they give me the tools to make it possible. The bodies. So I can be the painter of their art. But it’s _strange_. At the end I always feel that they’re the ones who handle the brush.”

“Splendid, you can fight against those voices. You are more powerful than them. You don’t have to follow their orders blindly like some kind of soldier.”

“Soldier, ah? How ironic.”

The pen swings in the air.

“Why is that ironic, Splendid?”

“...I’m scared Doctor,” he changes the subject. “I’m sure the janitor is going to get mad at me, again.”

“I do not understand. Tell me, how does the janitor relate to any of this?”

Splendid reclines his chair, staring at the whitish ceiling. He refuses to look at Lumpy. He swallows.

The pen falls eventually, splashing into the blood that kisses the ground. Lumpy’s head tilts to the left, attached to his neck only by a pair of remaining tendons.

“Tell me yourself, Doctor,” Splendid begins, half playful, half histeric. “Do not these beautiful intestines belong to you?”

“Ah, what a tragedy. I’m afraid that I’m indisposed at the moment— our session is over for today Splendid. Have a good day.”

X

In Tree Town chaos and disorder reign.

Death walks through the streets, waddling her hips and singing sweetly, and if you pay enough attention you can smell the fear emanating from the underground, as it were her perfume.

(this town has its own personality, its own desires.)

And Splendid _is not stupid_ , despite Flippy’s opinion. Maybe he’s somewhat naive and hopeful, yes, but not an idiot.

Still, he’s shocked to see Flippy saying goodbye to Flaky with fondness, from the window of his apartment. It’s an enthusiasm he never uses with him, even now that people find them together more than usual.

As if Splendid were not aware of the _special relationship_ they both have— a poorly concealed secret. Splendid kind of wants to laugh, or throw up.

Everyone knows as a matter of fact that Flaky frequents Flippy, despite his fear of Fliqpy. Even if most people, with very few exceptions, avoid him.

Flippy is lonely by nature.

But he still hangs out with her if she asks.

Does he consider her a friend? Or something more? Perhaps he likes-likes her? And what about Flaky? Does she have... romantic feelings for Flippy as well?

Flaky never stops shaking, even when she isn’t nervous. She always stutters too. She’s also really pretty. Splendid likes her a lot, honestly. And yet— _and yet_ — at that moment Splendid cannot help but feel annoyance towards her.

He bites his tongue, counting to ten, and moves away from the window.

(the voices stir.)

(there are monstrous faces screaming on the ceiling.)

When Flippy returns he finds him curled up on the couch, crestfallen.

Somehow Splendid is not surprised to find out a couple of hours later that Flaky has apparently suffered a stroke.

Somehow Flippy ends up hugging him tightly. And it’s not a surprise, either.

Splendid mumbles clumsy apologies, Flippy just tightens his grip on him.

X

“Hey.”

“Hm.”

“What happened to... the thing between us? Our hostility towards each other?”

Flippy serves coffee in a cup, stir it in circles with a spoon, and puts three lumps of sugar. He ignores him on purpose. Splendid frowns.

“Ey Flippy—”

“I don’t know,” he finally replies, his face carefully blank. “Why should I know? I’m not the one who has moved to a foreign house without warning.” Flippy sets the cup aside, not without care. “Tell me yourself, _hero_.”

“I can leave whenever I want,” Splendid says. But he doesn’t sound sure of himself. He takes a breath and his voice is strangely sharp. He brings his palm to his own chest, then. “I can leave _this place_ at any moment.”

“Of course you can.” Flippy agrees. “But you just will go to your old house, to continue murder from left to right.”

“That’s not...”

Splendid startles but recoils, accidentally colliding with a vase that falls and breaks.

Flippy has cornered him against a wall, impassive.

“It doesn't matter if you’re _here_ or _there_ ,” Flippy continues. And he sounds almost pained. “Don’t you get it yet, after everything that has happened?”

Splendid is consumed by the urge to run away, but his limbs are useless. He’s frozen, and it’s difficult for him to breathe.

 _Stop, don’t say it_.

“I know what’s happening to you Splendid. You and I suffer the same problem, after all. And just so it’s all clear— it’s not you, and _it’s not your fault_ , but you also _don’t have a choice_.”

 _Destroy him_ , the chairs sing. _Snatch his arms as if they were the wings of a fly!_

“STOP! We’re nothing alike!” Splendid pushes him and unable to hold himself longer falls to his knees. He hits his forehead against the floor, by accident, and hits it again, on purpose, over and over and over. “I— I don’t— I’m not sick!”

Flippy growls in exasperation, doesn’t try to stop him.

“Of course you’re not! Are you such a fool? It’s not you, IT’S NOT YOU!”

(this town has its own personality, its own desires.)

“This whole damn town has life because it steals other’s lives! Do you finally _get it_?”

(welcome home, welcome home, hero.)

Slowly the blood starts to flow between his eyelids.

X

They kiss each other.

With coarseness, poorly contained desire, a soft cotton anger.

Splendid loses control one day and arrives covered in blood and they fight in the living room and then he says, “You’re so infuriating, god!” and Flippy says, “Yeah? _So are you_ ,” and then they look at each other for a minute, and _suddenly they’re kissing_.

Flippy pushes him through the apartment, throwing him on the mattress of the bed, while stubbornly biting his lips and then his throat, leaving marks of teeth on his skin, making a mess of red. Splendid scratches his scalp without delicacy, in a vague attempt to provoke him. And it works.

Soon he has Flippy’s fingers stroking his crotch, feeling between his boxers.

There are not affectionate words.

(violence has always been a soft, messy thing for both of them.)

Then their clothes disappear in a fleeting flicker, between restless hands and sweaty skin and grinding hips and their cocks hardening.

Flippy coats his fingers on lube and puts one digit inside him without any warning, and he strokes languidly his dick at the same time, and Splendid groans like a bomb about to explode. He buries his fingernails in Flippy’s back, rejoicing internally upon hearing him hiss.

He’s so, so wet and hard already and his cock dropping pre-cum and Flippy is still fingering him, in and out and in and out, crooking his fingers, when he retracts his hand from Splendid’s dick.

“Please, please, please—” his mouth is ajar. Flippy smiles against his collarbone, taking it out on him, and Splendid allows him.

His fingers are not friendly, there’s already three scissoring him, and they kind of want to split him in half.

Then everything becomes blurry.

It’s all heat between cold sheets, Flippy’s tongue licking and his mouth sucking, and Splendid drawing abstract art on Flippy’s bare back. Flippy reaches his prostate— pushes it just _right so_ — and Splendid cums just for that, almost screaming.

He tries to breathe, slowly, but his lung burn in ice.

“I used to hate you, you know,” he confesses, after a brief minute, when he catches his voice again. “Or I thought I hated you. I’m not sure anymore. Hell. Maybe I have always been in love with you and was just in denial, I wouldn’t be surprised at this point.”

“...Yeah. I know. _I knew_ ,” Flippy removes his fingers from him, kisses the corner of his mouth, and takes away a little more of his sanity. “Let me fuck you.”

Another slow breath.

“Okay.”

Flippy starts to turn him over, Splendid protests. They struggle for a while. Flippy wins and Splendid kind of wants to punch that smug smirk off his face, but he’s laying on his chest now, a pillow below his knees, and then Flippy slides in his cock in a single thrust, and takes his in his calloused hand. Splendid sighs. He’s hard again and so tight and everything hurts and is wonderful.

 _Maybe I’m in love with you_.

“You are Splendid, do you hear me?” Flippy says, suddenly. Splendid blinks and cletches the sheets.

“Wha— ngg-h.”

Flippy grunts and slams his hips against him again. Strokes his dick harder, shutting him up. Bastard.

“Splendid, the _idiotic_ and _optimistic_ and _brave_ and _stuborn_ hero.”

Splendid curls his toes.

“And Tree Town can never change that, okay? No matter how much it uses you,” Flippy runs his teeth through his spine, goes deeper inside. Splendid mewls, and it’s embarrasing, but he can’t help it. “No matter how much it plays with you. You’re going to be yourself, in the end. Under all the... mmfff— under all the blood and guts... it’s just yourself. Okay?”

He feels overwhelmed.

“Flippy, _Flippy_. Please. I can’t— I'm—”

One stroke more, and Splendid arches his back.

Flippy buries his face in his neck, following him soon. They both moan loudly.

(if he falls into the abyss Flippy is already there to catch him.)

X

Outside it furiously rains.

Splendid rolls up the sleeves of his sweatshirt, picking up a cloth to wipe the rest of the blood.

In the hall of the building the receptionist is lying dead in the middle of the stairs with some scissors stuck in the side of her head.

Oh. Is hopeless, isn’t it?

No, no.

This probably will be his downfall.

The truth is that Splendid feels a terrible desire to return and finish the job. Take out her eyes and use them like pingpong balls, jump the rope with her intestines, anything.

_What happened to me to end up like this?_

Nothing.

It was natural.

The town has its own desires, the town use its people to carry them out, that’s all.

And the voices make fun of him. But he can ignore them now.

(A tragedy. Just a fucking tragedy.)

“Splendid?”

Except it isn’t. Not all the time.

Flippy’s voice comes from the entrance of the apartment. Splendid bends over, still in front of the sink.

A pair of arms surround him from behind, a cold breath tickles his neck.

“Hey, everything is fine,” Flippy says, and he sounds almost tender. “You are you, remember?”

 _It’s okay. It’s already over. You’re here with me_.

An ugly thought flashes beside him, ‘But is it really me? Or I’m just a puppet for this town in disgrace? Who is there to say that Tree Town is not inside me yet, that Splendid didn’t die long ago and only I remain... like this? As an empty shell. Even when I’m not killing people.’ But Splendid inmediatly shakes his head, ignoring it.

“Yes. I mean. I am me,” he says. _And I’m with you_.

He lets out a wry laugh, though. Flippy doesn’t undo his hug, but he squeezes his ribs, to the point where Splendid thinks he’s going to break them. It doesn’t matter— Flippy’s not going to— _he trusts him_ , now. So he relaxes.

“But I think I’m crazy, too. I’d rather be crazy.”

“Do you mean it?” Flippy asks, curious. Splendid turns around, and shakes his head.

“I... No. Not really.”

Flippy hums.

“Oh well. That’s unfortunate.”

And Splendid narrows his eyes but plays along.

“Why?”

_Why do you love me?_

Then Flippy interwines their hands, soaking his in red. His eyes are dark, but not malicious.

(even heroes need to be saved, from time to time.)

“Don’t you know, really? Madness and I got along _just great_. Duh.”

And it’s morbid, and somewhat fucked up, not quite. But it makes Splendid smile, sincerely smile. He hasn’t smiled in months.

“Oh, if that’s the case, I guess I’m very lucky then.”

Flippy grimaces.

“Maybe you are.”

Without saying anything else Flippy stands on his tiptoes and crashes their lips together, and Splendid closes his eyes.

He manages to silence the voices around him, to not smeall death’s perfume from below.

Just for an instant. It’s more than _enough_.

Later, much later, they fuck in the living room couch, and life is warm and sweet like fresh blood.

The flies continue to flutter downstairs.


End file.
